The Other Resistance
by The Ascended Ancient
Summary: What if the Animorphs weren't the only resistance to the Yeerk invasion? What if there was another group of teens fighting back, one that wasn't granted special superpowers and had only their wits to rely on? This is the story of such a group.
1. The Escape

_**The Other Resistance  
**_**Written By: The Ascended Ancient**

**Disclaimer: Animorphs is owned by K.A. Applegate, and I am not making any money from using her material in this story. However, there is quite a lot of original stuff in here too, and all of that is purely mine.**

**Chapter I  
"The Escape"**

_Josh_

My name is Josh. Josh Hammond. That should've blown your mind right then and there, at least if you've read any of those other chronicles about the war. Those people don't tell you who they are, or where they live (by the way, I live(d) in Trenton, New Jersey). They have good reason to keep quiet about these things. After all, the secrecy of their identities is the key to their survival. I, however, don't have a secret identity. The Yeerks knew about me long before I knew about them.

For you newbies out there who haven't read any of this crap before, a Yeerk is an alien slug that crawls in your ear, sinks into your brain, and takes control of you (hence the term 'Controller' for anyone who's been infested). They do take a break from this every three days to bathe in their Yeerk Pool and eat Kandrona Rays, but this brief respite from enslavement is spent in a cell with all of the other hosts whose Yeerks are right where yours is. Basically, it's not a fun existence, and that's something I know firsthand. That's because for a little more than a year, I was a Controller.

It all started when I was a Junior in High School. Back then I was just muscular six foot one guy with long blonde hair, shiny blue eyes, and a perpetual five o'clock shadow that girls said gave me a rugged, sexy look. I was the king of the social order (and was even crowned that at two consecutive Homecomings), not to mention the captain and quarterback of the school's football team, and I even got pretty good grades. Every girl wanted me, every guy wanted to be me, the whole cliché. I guess that's why they came after me.

The Yeerk leadership had already decided that the risks of being exposed by going after political leaders right away was too great; those people were far too much in the public spotlight, and there was always a good chance that they were never completely alone. So they came after people like me, people with influence that had been earned by our personalities and our actions instead of a title. They thought that if they could get enough of us, they could use us to get the fickle masses to follow us blindly into throwing away their freedom. What really sucks about all of this is that they were right.

The Yeerk in my head was named Yelsin 112, but it held the rank of Sub-Visser 52. Basically, the little bastard was in charge of the whole operation in the tri-state area, and he'd chosen Trenton to be Ground Zero (Mostly because it was a major urban area without much existing subterranean infrastructure compared to other cities in the region, which made their efforts to build an underground Yeerk Pool far less difficult). He made me into the poster child for the Sharing, a club that I'd heard about in chat rooms but had never existed in our area before. I learned quickly that the Sharing was the busty blonde waving the flag to draw you over the finish line – into enslavement. Everyone who joined worked hard to become a 'senior member,' and every senior member got a Yeerk in his or her head.

During that year, I helped infest over a third of my school, both teachers and students. I also oversaw the construction of the Trenton Yeerk Pool, as well as the gradual expansion of Yeerk control not just over Trenton but over all of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. It made me sick, but there was nothing I could do. Every so often, if I fought long enough and hard enough, I could twitch my finger for a moment, but that was it. The Yeerk was too strong. So rather than try to retake my body with the slug in it, I tried to make a break for it a few times when it wasn't. Unfortunately, the only time that happened was at the Pool, where the Yeerk cavalry is. On top of the fact that the Hork-Bajir Controllers are practically walking knives, they're also extremely strong, and I could never break free of them long enough to get anywhere.

After about six months I gave up. The fight was getting too tiring, and I'd achieved nothing from it. I hated myself for this newfound compliance with my enslavement, but what was there to do at that point?

Then came that fateful day that changed my miserable life forever. I was in my cage at the Pool, sitting in the corner and brooding on how any minute that slimy little piece of shit would be back in my head and I would be once again watching my species being enslaved. Suddenly, the lights flickered. Alarms went off, blaring so loudly that I clamped my hands over my ears. Outside, the Controllers were running all over the place. I walked over to the bars and watched, for a brief moment hoping beyond hope that the Pool was being attacked, and the United States military was finally about to save me. It was a fantasy I'd had for some time now, that the secrecy of this whole invasion would fail and the army would come in and blow the bastards into the next galaxy.

Well, that wasn't the case here, as I realized as soon as I heard cries about the reactor. _Just a technical glitch_, I thought glumly. _Just a lousy, god damned…_

Half the lights in the chamber exploded. Glass and sparks fell to the floor, causing even more chaos as Controllers frantically moved to get out of the way. A few moments later I heard the sound of explosions from the command center, followed by more screams and panicking. I smiled at all of this; it may only be a malfunction, but it was giving the Yeerks a hell of time. Then, there was a small explosion far closer to where I was standing. I could barely believe what I was seeing as sparks shot out of the electronic lock for my cell, but when one of my fellow prisoners pushed the door open, none of us wasted any time. We ran out of there, and the Pool descended into true chaos. It was all of the cells, and not just ours, that had short-circuited, so there were hundreds of people now pouring out into the middle of the room. Controllers blended in with humans, everything was total chaos. Orders were shouted out over the roar of the throng, and the Hork-Bajir were brought in. They cut down a few of the fleeing hosts before planting themselves at the exits, and with frighteningly vicious efficiency were able to repel or kill any human attempting to pass them.

I stayed away from the Hork-Bajir, and the main exits in general. After all, I didn't need them. I'd had the bastard who'd helped design this place in my head for the past year; I knew the Yeerk Pool better than some of the Controllers here did. The main exits weren't the only ways out.

Moving carefully through the throng, I spotted a Human Controller waving around his Dracon Beam, firing shots into the crowd to try and bring it under control. I slugged him in the face and took his weapon before moving out. Slipping out of the group, I dashed over to the side of the pool, behind a pile of storage crates, and there it was: a ventilation grating covering the mouth of one of the Pool's air shafts. Drawing my weapon, I blasted it apart before crawling into it. It was a tight fit, but I managed. The Sub-Visser had been meticulous about every part of the Pool's design, so I knew the layout of the air shafts about as well as I knew any other part. Even though I was moving as quickly as I could, it still took an hour until I reached the surface. Blasting apart a sewage drain, I dragged myself up onto the streets of Trenton and breathed my first breath of fresh, free air in a long time. Tucking the Dracon Beam into my pocket, I began to run. I knew then just what I know now: the Yeerks won't just let me get away. They'll hunt me until I'm either dead or a host again. The only way to stay alive and free is to stay one step ahead of them, but no matter how hopeful I get I know that it's wishful thinking to believe that I can keep going forever. Sooner or later, they're going to catch up with me. When that happens, I can only hope that I can take enough of them down with me to make them regret the day they ever decided to put one of those slugs in my brain.

**End of Chapter I**

**A/N: So, what do you guys think? Please, review and tell me if I should keep going, or if I'm wasting my time and breath with you guys.**

**For those of you who are interested, however, the next few chapters will involve introducing several other major characters and bringing them together to form the resistance force that I'm talking about. I'll cover their own fight against the Yeerks, but eventually you will be seeing the Animorphs and my people coming into contact with one another.**


	2. The Revelation

**Chapter II  
"The Revelation"**

_Xan_

My friends call me Xan for short, but my real name is Alexander Parkman, and up until recently, I thought science fiction was just that: fiction. When I learned the truth, it was a rude awakening for me.

I was just chilling on my bed and watching TV that night, thinking about football during the commercials. Spring practice for the school team was going to start again soon, and as its starting wide receiver I couldn't stop running plays in my mind. It was still weird to me; I'd never intended to try out for football, and yet here I was totally immersed in it. One moment the Coach was resorting to all but begging me to try out – he thought that my small stature, light build, and success with the school's track team might make me perfect for the position – and the next I'm one of the team's key players. Back then, I thought that was the weirdest turn of events life could throw at me.

Anyway, so I'm flipping through the channels when I get this really weird phone call. Some guy speaking all funny on the other end tells me that something called a 'sub-fisher wants to speak with me. I told this weirdo to shove it up his ass and went back to channel surfing for a few more minutes before I get to Channel 3 – you know, the community access channel – right when they're replaying the public announcement that labeled my best friend as a dangerous fugitive. This wasn't the first time I'd seen it; it'd been broadcast on all the TVs earlier today in school. Nevertheless, I watched it one more time, my mind still struggling to comprehend these allegations. According to the Trenton PD, Josh Hammond, the guy I'd grown up with, played little league with, partied and chased girls with, was a felon. Even worse, he was charged with first degree murder. The cop making the address called him armed and dangerous, and warned people who saw him to report the sighting and keep their distance, a recommendation I knew I was going to ignore. If I ever saw him, I was going to do everything I could to get some answers, because none of this was making any sense to me.

As if to compound my confusion just then, a voice called out from my window and nearly scared the living daylights out of me. "I didn't do it," Josh Hammond stated solemnly as he climbed into my room. My eyes nearly bugged out of my head when I saw my slightly disheveled fugitive best friend standing right in front of me.

"Wha- What are you talkin' about?" I asked.

"It's kinda hard to explain," he told me. "Is your dad home?"

"Uh, no, but…"

"Good." He finished pulling himself through the window and into my room. "Look, something did happen, but it's not what you're seeing there. The thing is, I still need to get out of town. And, I, uh, was hoping you could help me."

"Help you? You're wanted for murder, and you want…"

"You know that's not true," Josh cut me off. "You've known me a long time, you know that I'd never do anything like that." I thought about that for a moment. Josh had always had more rage in him than most people gave him credit for; most of the time he kept it cool, but if someone had the misfortune to push him too far, things could get very ugly, very fast. But even when he totally blew a gasket, I never saw him completely loose control. But if that happened, he'd be accused of manslaughter; the cops were charging him with first-degree murder.

"Maybe," was what I eventually replied. "But, bro, come on, this ain't like me backin' you up in front of the principal. If I do this, I'm an accessory. I could go to jail, man. I…"

"I know," Josh interrupted. "Believe me, I know what could happen to you if you help me." A haunted look came over his eyes as he said that, which only further aroused my suspicions that there was more going on here than he was willing to say. "Look, all I want is some supplies. Food and water mostly, I haven't had anything in over a day. Then I'll be gone. No one has to know you gave it to me." After a few moments of silence as I considered his request, he added, "Please," in the most desperate tone of voice I'd ever heard from him. My heart just broke right then; guilty or not, this guy was my bro, my best friend since we were in diapers. I couldn't just throw him out on his ass.

"Ok, look, you need to be quiet. My mom's sleepin', and if we wake her she'll definitely report you. Now c'mon."

Josh thanked me as I lead him out of my room and down to the kitchen, grabbing an old backpack of mine along the way. Once we were there, we stuffed a buttload of crap into it: water bottles, snack packs, canned veggies, even an old piece of steak my mom had wrapped up in fridge, just to name a few things. When it was all done, Josh thanked me one more time and I showed him to the door.

"Bro, when you get outa here, you better move fast," I told him as he unlocked my front door, "cuz I'm gonna give you fifteen minutes before I call the cops." The moment I said that he spun around, a look of surprise and horror on his face.

"What? Why?"

"Look, they might track you here, and I'm sorry but I ain't goin' downtown for you. If I call 'em myself, I have a better chance of convincin' 'em that I had nothin' to do with you."

"So… you're going to tell the police that you've seen me?" Josh looked absolutely horrified at that prospect. In my opinion, he was making a big deal out of nothing. I'd given him what help I could, now I was going to cover my own ass.

Before I could call him out on it, however, the front door was suddenly kicked open… by my father? I could hardly believe my own eyes when I saw him standing there, flanked by three other big, burly guys. Josh was even more freaked out by their being here than I was; he quickly moved back away from them, and I could see that he was tenser than I'd ever seen him before.

"Dad? What the…"

"Alex, keep quiet!" he snapped at me before turning his attention back to Josh. "You must really be stupid to think that we weren't monitoring the phone lines. The moment the phrase 'Sub-Visser' entered that call, we were all over your ass." It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about.

"Wait, the 'sub-fisher' guy? That was you?" I asked Josh. He nodded.

"Had to be sure you weren't one of them, Xan," he told me without ever taking his eyes off of my dad.

"We didn't make infesting him a priority… yet," my dad announced as his companions moved further into the house, closing in on Josh with every step. Suddenly, my dad reached into his suit jacket and whipped out something that looked like a bastardized, angular flashlight. "Try and pull that Dracon Beam on me and I will cut you down before you even have the chance to point it at me." I didn't know what he was talking about, but I had noticed that Josh's right hand had been inching closer and closer to his back pocket. "The Sub-Visser would prefer his old body back, but he's more than willing to make do with another one. After all, there are so many choices on this planet of yours."

Ok, now I really thought that I was loosing it. "What the hell are you talking about?" I demanded.

"Shut up, Alex!" my dad snapped at me again. That was the second time that my soft spoken father had raised his voice to me in the past few minutes. That was more than he'd done that in the last year. I think that it was that more than anything else that placed my suspicions squarely on my father.

Something in my expression must've let Josh know what I was thinking, because right then he said, "Your dad's an alien." My eyes did the little cartoon pop-out thing just then as I struggled to wrap my head around that statement. "Or rather, he's an alien's slave. The little bastard is in his head right now, controlling everything he does." Before I could even decry all of that as ridiculous in my own head, my father responded to Josh's accusation in the last way I expected him to.

"Well, Josh, I thought you were noble. Now there's no way to get out of…" My dad froze for a moment, and a blank expression briefly came over his face. He snapped out of it quickly, though. "Now I really have no other choice but to take my son in and get him infested too. Karl." One of the brutes who accompanied my dad moved away from Josh and towards me.

_I need an Advil,_ I thought to myself as my head started to throb from the insanity of what was happening. It just couldn't be real. This was fantasy, it was scifi crap, this stuff didn't really exist. Then, that guy Karl laid his hands on me, and all the thousands of thoughts in my head faded away, replaced by a single, powerful instinct. I wrenched free of the big man's grip with speed and effectiveness gained from the hundreds of tackles I'd broken on the field and took a few steps back. Josh did the same, slipping away from the brutes My dad sighed in frustration.

"Alex, trust me, it's not worth fighting us. Josh here has done a better job of it than anyone I've ever seen, and he's only gotten a single day of freedom out of it. You can't fight us, you can't beat us, the only choice left is to join us. That's what your dad did, and he's got a very comfortable arrangement right now. You can have the same thing. Just don't mess with us right now."

"Xan, if you listen to them, you'll spend the rest of your life as a slave," Josh spoke up. "These things, they don't care about you, they just want your body. They…"

What happened just then, I'm still not completely sure of. It happened too fast, and I was still too shocked from everything that was going on to truly comprehend what exactly I was seeing. I remember one of the thugs reaching for Josh, then there was a flurry of motion, a flash of green light, and a strange high-pitched sound. When it was all over, the thug was dead on the ground and Josh had ducked into the bathroom, the same funny-looking object that my father was holding clutched in his hand as well.

The guy that had moved in on me before charged me again, and I yet again evaded his attempts to restrain me. Meanwhile, back in the foyer, Josh and my dad had turned the place into a scifi battleground. Those things they were holding – which I now concluded had to be some kind of weapon – were firing green bolts of energy at each other. _Two _bodies now lay on the floor between them. _Tssseeewwww! Tssseeewwww! Tssseeewwww!_ The sound of it was only slightly more pleasant than the sound of nails on a chalkboard, but the sight of it was entrancing. Fortunately, my mind wasn't so frozen by the shock of all of this to allow myself to become absorbed in the firefight. After all, I had my own problem to deal with.

The thug, Karl, came at me again, and I dodged him again, but I knew that it couldn't keep going like this. My gut told me that this fight needed to end now, so when the SOB came at me again I dropped low and charged right back at him. It was just like on the football field; I tripped the guy up into the air, and he landed hard on his back. The difference between this and the game is that this guy had no pads on, and he wasn't landing on soft grass but rather a hardwood floor. The wind knocked out of him, he struggled to get back up, but I finished him off with a strong kick to the head. He was out cold.

It was only when I turned back around to face the entranceway that I realized that I hadn't heard that infernal noise in some time now. A chill ran down my spine as I looked around to see who was still standing.

"We need to get out of here," Josh told me, but I barely heard him. My whole focus was on the man lying on the ground.

"Dad," I whispered, a tear rolling down my cheek. Josh stormed over to me.

"I'm sorry about your dad, but if we don't leave now you're going to wish you were lying there with him. Now _come on_!" He grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door. Once we were outside, however, I regained enough of my senses to follow him on my own. I barely saw where we were going, though; the image of my dad, lying dead on my floor, was burned in front of my eyes, and it wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

**End of Chapter II**

**A/N: Ok, well, things heated up a little bit in this one. That's just a taste of what's to come. Once my team has been assembled, you'll witness them embarking on a much darker, more desperate war against the Yeerks than the one waged by the Animorphs. Until then, expect another Josh chapter next, a short one to fill in a crucial piece of the storyline before I move on to another character.**


	3. The Decision

**A/N: To respond to a reviewer who brought it up, I do plan to bring the Animorphs into the story eventually. How and when are still up for grabs, since while I have the basic storyline thought out in my head, I'm doing the details on a chapter-by-chapter basis.**

**Chapter III  
"The Decision"**

_Josh_

Going to Xan's house was a mistake. I knew it even before I went there in the first place, but I was just plain desperate. I hadn't eaten in over a day, and I couldn't show my face in a supermarket or food court because everyone who watched the news believed that I was wanted for murder. I knew that I had to turn to somebody, but most of my friends were Controllers – thanks in no small part to me while I was under Sub-Visser 52's control. The ones that weren't had Controllers for parents or siblings, and I was almost positive that, following my escape, they would be taken forcefully. Xan, however, was the exception. His father may have been a Controller, but he was a voluntary one, who surrendered himself to protect his son from meeting the same fate. In addition, the Yeerk in his head wasn't one of the stronger ones, and I was fairly certain that it wouldn't want to endanger the arrangement it had going for it.

Even with that sound logic, my gut feeling turned out to be right; going to Xan only screwed things up even more than they already were. Now he was on the run too, and on top of it all I'd had to kill his father in front of him. I'd turned my best friend's life upside down in a matter of minutes. What made it even worse was that every time I looked back to make sure he was still with me, all I saw was a blank expression on a face that had once displayed excitement and enthusiasm towards everything that came his way. He was in so much shock that he didn't speak a word, not even when I tried to engage him in conversation on the few occasions that night that we took a break. He just stared off at the space; he didn't even look like he heard me talking to him.

Finally, we reached the riverbed. At this time of year the water level was only just starting to rise, and there was still a great deal of terrain on the edges that we could navigate. My family loved the outdoors, so I'd hiked my way around here when I was younger, and I knew a few interesting spots that could be reached when the water level was where it was now.

Sure enough, there it was: a small cave, only a few yards back into the hillside overlooking the river, but it was shelter. Once Xan and I were inside, I told him to go to sleep. For once he seemed to have heard me, because he listened; the guy was out like a light. As for me, my plan was to stay up and keep watch, but I hadn't slept in more than twenty-four hours, and before I knew it I was passed out myself.

Thankfully, no Yeerks showed up during the night. And the next morning, I woke up to find Xan already wide awake, staring at my accusingly.

"What the hell is going on?" He wasted no time in getting straight to the point, so I decided not to mince words either. I told him about the Yeerks, about the invasion, about everything. When I was finished, he just stared off into space like he did last night. I understood that it would take some time for him to process everything I'd just told him, so I reached into my back and rummaged around with what I had. In the end, I pulled out two apples and tossed one of them to him. The cave was silent while we ate, but it didn't stay that way afterwards.

"So, my father was one of these... Controllers," The way Xan spoke those words, the anguish and hate the filled his voice, made me regret even more that I'd gone to his house last night.

"Yes." It was a simple answer, but I felt that a lengthy explanation would just make things worse for him right now.

"So you killed him." It was a direct accusation now. I just nodded my head. "Didn' even try to save him," Xan continued, his voice cracking as he visibly struggled to hold back tears.

"I would've if I'd had..."

"_You didn' even try!_" Xan leaped to his feet and began shouting at me. "_You..._" I grabbed my friend before he could say anything else, clamped a hand over his mouth, and slammed him against the wall.

"Listen to me," I hissed. "We cannot afford to draw attention to ourselves, because they are out there looking for us. And yes, I did kill your father, and I'm sorry for that, but it was the only option I had. He was trying to kill me, and afterwards he would've enslaved you. And yes," I continued with a slightly raised voice when he attempted to protest, "he would've, because he was a Controller. He was a slave to the Yeerk in his head, and there is nothing you can do to fight against that. I was a host for a year, I know how powerful these bastards are, and I know how futile it is to fight against their control over you. And the only way," I raised my voice a bit more now as he clearly wanted to argue again, "to save him, to get that slug out of his head, is to starve it out, and it takes _three days_ to do that. And with the entire Controller army out there trying to track you down, there's just not enough time to do that."

Finally, I released him and stepped back. Xan glared at me for a few moments more, but he couldn't keep it up any longer. The floodgates opened, and the grief that had been driving his anger finally poured out.

I gave him some space for an hour, letting him cry out the pain. Finally, though, I knew that we had to move. It was mid-afternoon, and contrary to common belief it is sometimes better to be on the run in daytime rather than at night – specifically because in broad daylight the Yeerks couldn't use every resource at their disposal to try and kill you.

"Hey, man, we need to get going," I told him gently.

Xan looked up at me, his eyes still red, and asked, "To where?" _I don't know_, I wanted to reply, but there was such hopelessness in his eyes I had to give him something.

"Someplace safe," was what I said.

"So we're just gonna run?" He wiped his eyes and got back to his feet. "I mean, there are all those people who are being taken, and there's nothin' we can do for them?" I sighed.

"What can we do? They have Controllers using every branch of law enforcement to hunt us. Their bases are defended by an army of alien species they've enslaved, some of which are walking killing machines. And they have a fleet of ships in orbit just waiting to be called in if they need their support. I mean, I want to fight back. I want to kill every last one of those bastards, but there are only the two of us. There's nothing we can do to hurt them."

"Then what about exposin' them? We could get more people on our side, build an army, and..."

"No one would believe us if we told them," I cut off his rant. "We have no proof. They'll just laugh us off and go to their next Sharing meeting where they get held down in a back room and have a slug..."

"The Sharing," Xan interrupted. "They announced yesterday that they're having a big retreat this weekend up in the mountains. About a hundred kids from the school are going, and most of them are new members." My heart sunk at that thought. By Monday, there would be a new wave of hosts Controllers joining the Yeerk ranks. "They're camping out up where we used to go," Xan added.

"Pine Ridge?" Xan nodded. Instantly, the wheels began spinning in my head. Xan and I practically grew up at the Pine Ridge campground, we probably knew it better than almost anyone else alive. "That might work..."

**End of Chapter III**

**A/N: This one was a hard one, since I really had to lay down the foundation of the resistance in it. Coming up, will Josh and Xan be able to take down the Sharing retreat at Pine Ridge? And even if they do, how long can they stay out of Yeerk hands? All of this and more coming soon.**

**Remember to review!!**


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